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== Political Support for Relativity ==

== Political Support for Relativity ==

Relativity enjoys a disproportionate share of federal funding of physics research today, much of it unsuccessful.  The billion-dollar LIGO project, for example, has failed to detect the gravity waves predicted by relativity.<ref>http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/sept/gravitywaves/index.html</ref>

Relativity enjoys a disproportionate share of federal funding of physics research today{{fact}}, much of it unsuccessful{{fact}}.  The billion-dollar LIGO project, for example, has failed to detect the gravity waves predicted by relativity.<ref>http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/sept/gravitywaves/index.html</ref>

There is a correlation between enthusiasm for the theory of relativity and political views, and there is an unmistakable effort to censor or ostracize criticism of relativity.  Physicist [[Robert Dicke]] of Princeton University was a prominent critic of the theory of relativity and that may have hurt him professionally, though it also likely that this is because his proposed model of the effect of gravity on electromagnetic waves performed worse than Einstein's model:

There is a correlation between enthusiasm for the theory of relativity and political views{{fact}}, and there is an unmistakable{{fact}} effort to censor or ostracize criticism of relativity{{fact}}.  Physicist [[Robert Dicke]] of Princeton University was a prominent critic of the theory of relativity and that may have hurt him professionally, though it also likely that this is because his proposed model of the effect of gravity on electromagnetic waves performed worse than Einstein's model:

::But the J.P.L. experimenters reduced the margin of error to 4% or less by locating the distant spacecraft within 100 ft. of their actual position. Thus, when they calculated that the signal to Mariner was slowed down by 204 millionths of a second on its round trip, they dealt the Brans-Dicke theory a sharp if not decisive blow. Their measurement was only 4 millionths of a second off the Einsteinian prediction, but 18 millionths of a second off the Brans-Dicke figure.<ref>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943324,00.html</ref>

::But the J.P.L. experimenters reduced the margin of error to 4% or less by locating the distant spacecraft within 100 ft. of their actual position. Thus, when they calculated that the signal to Mariner was slowed down by 204 millionths of a second on its round trip, they dealt the Brans-Dicke theory a sharp if not decisive blow. Their measurement was only 4 millionths of a second off the Einsteinian prediction, but 18 millionths of a second off the Brans-Dicke figure.<ref>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,943324,00.html</ref>